Hi, guys. I have a question about performance on XSI 6. I recently built a computer so that I could work more on my CG projects. I know that Quadro was probably the best choice for a graphics card, but looking to cut costs, I thought a Geforce 7600GT would suffice (I also saw posts on these forums that indicated this was the case). I am finding, though, that the performance is somewhat lackluster. To perform a primitive benchmark on the card, I just set up a sphere and subdivide it a lot. At about 400,000 polygons, things are already too slow to be able to work with. Now, I am wondering what sort of performance you guys get and on what hardware. I have tried this on both Windows and Linux (using the XSI foundations trial) If it helps, here are further specs:

The xeon should be fine (could even have a look at overclocking as well, these chips have a lot fo headroom before they start getting unstable).

The memory isn't really cutting it any longer, should really be using 2Gb to make the most of xsi.

The video card is a bit on the budget side for running dual monitors (have you tried running the same test with just one to see what happens? That could tell you whether its a direct result of the video card or not) - the 7900 or 7950 series would probably suit your needs well.

T4D

01 January 2007, 10:15 AM

dual Monitors on a Cheap card would be a issues ( heaps say Quadro's are over priced but dual monitors is one place where they show they power over the Game cards )

ram would also be a issues ( check you task manager when your working )

but 400 000 polygons ?? what are you trying to do ? ( CA with a 400 000 polygon character ? )
have you heard about proxy objects ?

I have afew million polygon in my current scene it has slowed down, not alot,( I'm on win 64 bit ) but I just wonder what sort of performance are you after ?
if you want to push things that much ( half a million polygon you really should be on win 64 bit )

if your not on win 64 ( and even if you are ) you should plan and design your layers etc so you can work in a faster and more focus way.

bench marks are for nerds :rolleyes: get to work and work with what you have :thumbsup:

cct

01 January 2007, 02:50 PM

if you want to push things that much ( half a million polygon you really should be on win 64 bit )

You don't need Windows 64 bit for a mere 500,000 polygons. I'm on 32 bit, and that kind of detail doesn't even slow down the viewport (my machine is far from high-end by now).
I regularly work with scenes that contain several million faces - 32 bit has been fine for me so far.

TwistedSheep

04 April 2007, 01:52 AM

One thing that I just discovered regarding the XSI viewport speed, and made a huge impact on viewport frame rate, is which monitor you have plugged in to the main output of your video card.

To test, right click on your desktop and go to properties. Then the Settings tab, and then click the Identify button. If your primary monitor shows up as monitor #2, then try shutting off your computer and switching the monitor plugs on the back of your video card.

By setting my main screen as monitor #1, i gained a huge performance boost in the XSI viewport. It's almost as if the main OpenGL acceleration is tied to the video card's main output. I always thought it was the setting in windows 'Use this device as your primary display' (something like that), but it doesn't appear so.

Give it a shot, it might help the performance! =)

halfdan

04 April 2007, 02:28 PM

One thing that I just discovered regarding the XSI viewport speed, and made a huge impact on viewport frame rate, is which monitor you have plugged in to the main output of your video card.

This is very likely down to the video card not being able to handle 3D acceleration for two screens at the time (either due to inherent limitations in the hardware or lack of memory for zbuffers) and so it falls back on software OGL for the second monitor.

DonMeck

04 April 2007, 02:46 PM

it's acutally a windows issue. Only primary display is d3d accelerated by default when using DualView (i.e. on NVidia cards). If you want accelerated output on both screens you need to use 'horizontal span' mode from the nvidia driver settings panel.

TwistedSheep

04 April 2007, 03:37 PM

Ohhhhhh, i never realized that windows suffered from such a problem. Horizontal mode it is!

Thank you both for the info btw! =)

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